


About Power

by fragilelittleteacup



Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Drabble, Dubious Consent (faked), First Time, Fondling, M/M, Manipulation, Murder, Not Beta Read, Rough Sex, dark!Jed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 10:37:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10093223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilelittleteacup/pseuds/fragilelittleteacup
Summary: Everything in the world is about sex– except sex.Sex is about power.





	

Jonathan had always known that women were his weakness. Helpless women. Women with soft eyes and charming smiles, who were intelligent and handsome, who wanted him as much as they needed him. He loved soothing their pain with his tongue and his hands, worshipping their bodies and tracing their scars with his teeth. He loved gentleness. Tenderness.

Jed was perfect.

 _Too_ perfect.

It took him far too long to realise. By the time her chirpy smiles and broken, shattered pain gave way to her true nature, he was already Thomas Quince, and in far too deep to turn back. The line of her spine, vertebra stark and bony beneath too-pale skin as she curled into a tight ball– the memory reconfigured itself in his mind, mutating and shifting, until he realised that her pose had been hiding a gruesome smile, a violent smirk. Too many teeth for such a pretty face. A shark wearing red lipstick and black eyes. He’d been standing in the hallway one night, silent, when he heard her whisper into Roper’s ear;

_“We’ve got him right where we want him. Not sure he’ll be able to resist now.”_

Shame. Embarrassment. How could he have fallen for such an act? He had expected Roper to test him, but he had been certain Jed was separate from his games. He hadn’t been able to see through the diamonds and the dresses, the gleam of tears trembling between her fragile eyelashes, and comprehend the weapon beneath it all. The poison of intelligence. A fabricated vulnerability, just for him. He wondered what she’d been for the others, the men and women that Roper had needed tested, seduced, destroyed.

The night that he realised, he went back to his room, sat in silence and let thoughts wander around in his mind until he reached a decision. The knowledge of what he had to do made him ill. Sick to his stomach. He let his eyes flutter closed, a sigh trembling from between his lips, and that was the only slip in his perfect façade.

It was terrifying, how easily he could submit to what he hated.

 

***

 

It was a dinner when he started the game. Began his scheme.

Jed was moving closer to him, laughing, her voice soft and musical. He played along until there was a pause in conversation. She looked down at her champagne and he looked away, like clockwork. He turned his gaze across the room, fixating on Roper as if he had meant to all along, as if he’d been stealing glances like this since the beginning. Let his eyes travel up and down. He knew Jed was watching, but he pretended to ignorance.

“Anyone for seafood, or am I alone in my _desires?”_ Corky asked, voice mischievous and knowing, and Jonathan knew he’d succeeded in his insinuation. He turned back to the table, laughing with the barest edge of desperation in his voice, letting his fingers fumble slightly as he took his glass. He saw Jed glancing down at his hand.

And so it started.

 

***

 

He knew he couldn’t rush the game, so he waited. He waited until there was a dinner with enough alcohol, and someone that he could use to further his own ends. A bureaucrat from America finally presented the perfect opportunity. His eyes were on Jonathan the moment he entered the room, and Jonathan smiled and shook his hand, only the smallest swell of nausea tightening his stomach as he thought of what he was about to do.

His understanding of himself was too blurred to uphold any kind of honest code.

The man was older, just as Jonathan had planned. Slightly overweight. Well-dressed, impeccable manners, gaze cold and cruel. A powerful bidder at a very wealthy table. It wasn’t hard for Jonathan to catch his eye throughout dinner, and then look down with a shy smile, a flush of pink rising to his cheeks. Feigning bashfulness. He drank a little too much, let his perfect and flawless reputation disappear down his throat. Over the course of the night his collar came askew, a wave of hair escaping down his forehead.

He went to the bar, got the table more drinks. The American followed, slid a hand onto Jonathan’s wrist. Stood a little too close.

“My room,” he said quietly, accent smooth and arrogant, “is upstairs.”

Jonathan glanced at him, then down at the bar. He nodded, a smile touching his lips. The American departed.

When Jonathan turned away from the bar, Roper was watching.

 

***

 

He pretended to be drunker than he was, because his instinct said the American wanted him that way. Helpless. Young and beautiful, vulnerable and intoxicated. He leaned against the doorway and tilted his hips to the side, smiling. A glass of champagne in his hand, teetering.

“We don’t have long,” he said slowly, letting his words slur, “Roper will want me downstairs for dessert.”

The American approached him. Hands against his face, a gentleness that Jonathan knew would soon disappear. He let his eyes fall closed.

“We have as long as I say we do, boy.”

He allowed himself be pulled away from the door, towards the bed. Thrown down unceremoniously, clothes removed quickly and without grace. The champagne was discarded with the carelessness of someone with too many possessions, and Jonathan flinched at the shattering of glass. The American liked that.

There was no tenderness. No consideration. Jonathan had never been fucked before, and as he lay there with his face pressed into a soft pillow, he thought he ought to be more traumatised by this. More disgusted with himself, more afraid of the hands on his hips and the sudden agony as the American pushed into him. He screamed, but didn’t resist.

“So _tight_. Were you a virgin, boy?” The question was breathed against Jonathan’s neck, and he trembled, not answering. The mouth at his skin snarled with vicious pleasure.

"Stop," Jonathan sobbed when he felt the body behind him start to move, because he knew the reaction that his fear would inspire, "wait-"

A hand wrapped around his face, palm over his mouth.

The fucking started in earnest.

 

***

 

He came downstairs with a limp in his step, hair mussed. The dinner party were preoccupied drinking and eating, and Jonathan headed straight for the bar again, swallowing down a glass of whiskey and grimacing at the burn. He let his hands tremble and his throat tighten when he swallowed. He sensed Roper approach him from behind.

“Everything alright, Jonathan?” Roper asked jovially, worry and suspicion betrayed only by his use of Jonathan’s real name in public.

“Think I might head back to the motel,” he said to Roper, smiling unconvincingly, “I’m… I’m not feeling well.”

Roper looked at him, eyes dark and expressionless. But there was a flash of something else there, in the tension of his mouth and the tautness of his jaw.

“Are you sure everything’s alright?” He asked again, slower now.

Jonathan let vulnerability seep into his expression. Let fear fill his eyes. He looked down at his now empty glass and sighed shakily.

Without replying, he walked away.

 

***

 

Later, Jonathan stood outside with Roper, cool wind through his air and the smell of salt niggling at his senses. The dark night was painted with the orange from streetlights, and Roper watched him as he calmly drank Russian contraband vodka.

“It’s not jealously, really,” Roper was saying, “it’s lust. What Corky would give for a night with you.”

Jonathan looked away over the sea. He tightened his posture, a frown pulling at his face, a sharp inhalation betraying the fear that Roper had so obviously intended to provoke. He let the silence stretch on.

“I wasn’t sure I could trust a man with no appetite. Turns out you do have appetite, Jonathan. Has it often gotten you into trouble, hmm?”

Jonathan swallowed, shook his head and looked down. How easily he could play the innocent. The afraid.

“I’m afraid don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Roper put down his glass, a quiet tap as he set it against stone. They moved as if tugged by gravity, an unseen force binding their bodies. Jonathan looked up with wide eyes when Roper lifted a hand to grip his chin. He knew how he looked, like this, knew how the light would slip over his cheekbones and paint the angles of his face. Yet another pretty accessory for Roper to possess– but also an enigma, a mystery. Something that Roper could entertain himself with. An object of diversion.

“I took care of him for you. The American.”

Jonathan let his mouth part with a shocked sigh. “What…?”

Roper leaned forward, and their lips met. Jonathan froze as if he hadn’t seen it coming.

He let himself slouch, stance weakening. He didn’t entirely have to fake it. Roper kissed like he was claiming Jonathan’s mouth, establishing ownership. He didn’t need to be violent, not like the American. He was much too powerful for that. In fact, if it had been anyone else, kissing like this might’ve even been pleasurable.

Roper pulled back after a while. Looked at Jonathan with those dangerously intelligent eyes.

“Do you want this? Or are you just letting me do as I please?”

Jonathan flicked his tongue, a nervous dart of movement. Roper’s fingers were still on his face, and he had to keep satisfaction from his expression. He hadn’t won yet. He still had a game to play.

“Is there a difference?” He asked, voice raw and unsteady.

Roper’s mouth quirked with a cruel smile. “I don’t own you, Jonathan.”

Jonathan swallowed. “Don’t you?”

Roper considered that. His thumb gently stroked the skin over Jonathan’s cheekbone, and the touch burned. Like acid. Like the bombs that Roper had bought and sold and dropped on children, as if the poison of war pumped through his veins, soaked his skin, and was corrosive. Jonathan could feel the darkness, the madness, taking hold of him. Oh, the things he was willing to do now. The things he would let Roper do to him.

“Did you let that American do whatever he wanted, Jonathan? Is that what this is?”

“I was drunk,” Jonathan let his voice tremble, just a little, and he glanced down, leaning the weight of his jaw into Roper’s hand– as if he needed to touch to ground him. “I didn’t… I didn’t want him. It was bad for business. I’m sorry.”

Roper seemed to like that admission. He moved closer.

“But I’m not drunk now.” Jonathan breathed, letting his eyes flutter closed. “Richard-”

Roper kissed him. Harder, now. Jonathan whimpered quietly, kissed back with frightened reluctance. He knew he had to let Roper be in control. Let Roper think this was his decision.

He felt a wall against his back. Darkness submerged them, and they were hidden from the glow of streetlights. Roper’s hands were under his clothes, fingers whispering over faded bruises. He seemed insulted by them, angered by the remnants of the American’s touch on Jonathan’s skin. He kissed harder, and Jonathan gasped faster, letting feeble moans hum in his throat. He knew that, if he wasn't before, he was now completely owned. That was what this was. Submission to ownership.

“If you want to say no, Jonathan, now would be the time.”

Jonathan let out a choked sound as Roper’s hand slid between his legs. He remembered Angela speaking the same words, and the contrast seemed almost funny.

“Do you want me to say no?” Jonathan breathed, hips jerking into Roper’s touch, “Ah-”

“Say what you wish. But if you don’t tell me ‘no’, I will not stop.”

Jonathan kissed him. Slid an arm around his shoulders, pulled him close. He didn’t say no– but he didn't say yes, because he knew that would be too easy. As Roper’s fingers made their way beneath fabric, Jonathan opened his eyes, looked out over the sea. He let his mouth fall open, helpless moans falling out into the night air, face against Roper’s neck. Bliss filled him, and he smiled, hungry and vicious at this taste of victory.

He knew how to win.

 

 


End file.
